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Spirituality
The consciousness that relates man directly to his Father-God. It is quickened and grows through prayer and other forms of religious thought and worship.
Intellectual understanding may present information about God, but spiritual understanding knows God. When our consciousness is attuned to Spirit we receive ideas direct from Divine Mind within ourself, where all is Truth, order, and perfection.
Man is the "image of God" and his mission on earth is to express and manifest God. To do this he must identify himself with God, with the Mind essence or substance that is God, and release the wealth of ideas that make up the God-nature. Manifest man is prosperous when he has peace of mind, an understanding heart, and joy and satisfaction in handling his affairs. He achieves these attitudes through knowing the one Creative Mind as his unfailing supply and support.
Words used by Metaphysicians:
The Christ consciousness is the Son of God consciousness in man, the state of consciousness in which the soul and the body are in harmony with Divine Mind, the Father, and all ideas and all faculties are in orderly adjustment and expressing in right relationship. It is man's supreme awareness of the pattern of perfection, I AM, the Christ, the Image, the Son of God. The Christ consciousness is God consciousness expressed in, by, and through manifest spiritual man, His Son. The Christ consciousness is God's ideal for man.
The "secret place of the Most High" is the name the Psalmist uses to designate the "place" within our own being where we may retire to feel God's presence and power. It is where the human consciousness merges with the divine consciousness and Spirit meets spirit
In the absolute sense, God is infinite Being, the one Presence, the one Power in the universe; the Creator, the Sustainer of all life. God is the originating Cause and continuing Source of all being, all creation. He is the one universal Principle, unchanging Law, the unlimited and absolute Good; He Is Truth, Spirit, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience.
Heaven is the poised and balanced wholeness existing in man and in the universe through a conscious realization of the presence of God, Absolute Good.
The kingdom of God, then, must be the realm of God within the individual, the very Presence of Absolute Good or God's own nature in every man. The kingdom of heaven is the realm of harmony resulting from the right use of the ideas that make up the kingdom of God.
Luke 17:21 "The kingdom of God is within you"
God's "will" is God's purpose, intent, plan, or law for man, His beloved son; and God being Himself Absolute Good, His will is always good, because He could only plan that which is good for His creation.
"For man, God's will or plan is that he shall express and manifest his true spiritual nature, imaged for him at creation"
Because our spiritual nature (called the Christ, or I AM, or our real Self), is God's own nature in us, we often refer to God's will in man as I AM, for it is His plan that man bring forth this nature. A right understanding of God's will for us does away with any tendency on our part to think that anything unpleasant could be "God's will" to which we have to submit.
Affirmation is making firm in consciousness that which is true of God and man; it is declaring as true in human experience that which is already true in Spirit.
An affirmation is a statement of Truth, spoken silently or audibly, or written for use by an individual. The word affirm comes from the Latin prefix af, an assimilated form of ad, meaning to add to or intensify, and firmare, meaning to make firm, stable. Affirmation is the claiming of what we believe (have faith) is already ours. If we have not felt our oneness with God and the spiritual principles, or laws of God, that we call divine ideas, we affirm in order to establish them as a conscious part of our mind or soul consciousness.
Realize that the forgiving love of Jesus Christ, the love of God intelligently active in us, dissipates and dissolves all that is unlike the nature of God. We are to exercise that spirit of love by forgiving all shortcomings (sins) in ourself and in all other persons.
The "race consciousness" is the sum of past and present thoughts, beliefs, concepts, and ideas prevalent among mankind. It has been said that possibly the greater part of our thinking did not begin at our cradle; that it is the sum of the thoughts of those born before us, producing the atmosphere we are born into and causing our thoughts to have the same general character as theirs.
Eight necessary conditions of true prayer.
We must
- Direct our prayer to the Lord within our own being, God's Presence in us.
- Acknowledge God as the Father-Mind which contains, constitutes, creates, sustains, and governs all that is.
- Know that each of us is the son-idea, forever one
- Enter the "inner chamber," the very core of our being, the innermost recess of our soul.
- Close the door to both physical and psychical phenomena. (We are seeking Spirit, not phenomena of any kind.)
- Seek to know, to understand the substance of Being, the kingdom of God, and the laws governing its presence and use.
- Have faith that Absolute Good, God, is the one Presence and the one Power in the universe and that the good we especially desire is now being manifested.
- Realize that the forgiving love of Jesus Christ, the love of God intelligently active in us, dissipates and dissolves all that is unlike the nature of God. We are to exercise that spirit of love by forgiving all shortcomings (sins) in ourself and in all other persons.
There is only one power in the universe, the power of God, Absolute Good; thus there can be no real power in what man terms "evil." All belief in evil as an entity arises because of ignorance of or lack of understanding of Truth. A person always fears that which in unknown; fears which he thinks can subdue or master him. The support that the evil appearance has is in the consciousness (mind) of man who conceives it and gives it the substance of his thought, thus keeping undesirable conditions alive.
We cannot say that evil is the "absence of good," for God as good is omnipresent.
"There is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence anywhere."
The law of giving and receiving is the law of balance.
"There is a law of giving and receiving … it is a law of mind action, and it can be learned and applied the same as any other law . . . The law of giving and receiving that Jesus taught, 'Give, and it shall be given unto you,' is found to be applicable to all our commercial as well as our social relationships"
The law of giving and receiving is the universal law of supply and demand. It is the law of reciprocity between God and His creation, including man. God is the source of all of man's good (divine ideas), and man's own consciousness must be the outlet that allows these ideas to produce his outer supply in the forms of health of body, food to sustain his body, shelter to house himself and his family, education, and all the many things that make for the "abundant life."
Sin is man's falling short in demonstrating the image and likeness of God, the I AM, the spiritual law of life that is imminent in every human soul. "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23). "All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). Sin is not the mere doing of wrong acts that do not conform to the moral law or the committing of offenses against others. Sin is a failure to recognize and apply spiritual principles despite the fact that we have an inner knowledge that may be drawn on at will. Sin is a failure to acknowledge the Christ, I AM, within ourselves and others.
Five Fundamental Truth Principles
- There is One Presence and One Power in the universe and in my life - God the Good
- God is individualized in us as the Christ Spirit, Christ within or indwelling Christ
- God operates in the universe according to the law of mind action
- The tools by which we work the law are denial and affirmation
- The best way to practice the Principles is through prayer and meditation and then in every thought, word, and action.
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